Our call to the JC Sentinel Event Hotline confirms our previous reporting about the ruse that is the Joint Commission International. “The standards are not the same. The standards are different. It’s a totally different manual.” What’s so wrong is that the JCI cleverly set up a different set of standards than what JC hospitals are beholden to in America—a fact confirmed through our call. Read the full transcript! What the JCI sells to foreign hospitals seems to be a valued accreditation. World citizens are led to believe these foreign hospitals operate under the same regulations and responsibilities as JC...

A hospital in North Idaho is marketing itself to Canadian tourists -- medical tourists, that is. Most of the patients who come into Northwest Specialty Hospital in Post Falls, Idaho, are from the local area -- plus a few from Washington and Montana.But hospital CEO Rick Rasmussen is thinking big -- Canada big. A little Canadian flag was recently added in the upper right of the hospital’s website.Medical tourism boomThe link goes to a list of procedures with some of the longest wait times north of the border. Total knee, total hip, total shoulder, ACL repair -- all with the...

The high cost of medical care in the US plus the rationing of medical care in other nations has spurred the growth of medical tourism. As I mentioned in a previous post, outstanding doctors, nurses, and hospital facilities can be found in countries such as Costa Rica, Thailand, India, the Philippines, etc. offering care at costs significantly lower than in the US and without the rationing and waiting times of other countries. One problem with traveling from the US to another nation for medical care is the cost and inconvenience of travel. Additionally, each nation will have its own tort...

The industry of medical tourism is growing quickly all around the world in response to the ever-climbing price of US healthcare bills. Outraged patients have been warming to the idea of overseas provision of surgery and treatment over the past seven years, says the Medical Tourism Association; an operation that works towards helping Americans find suitable healthcare in other countries. Europe is emerging as a key player in the medical tourism industry based on its competitive prices and well-respected medical reputation. Prices there are kept down by strict government regulation that stipulates a national maximum on specific operational cost, full...

Michael Shopenn’s artificial hip was made by a company based in this remote town, a global center of joint manufacturing. But he had to fly to Europe to have it installed. Mr. Shopenn, 67, an architectural photographer and avid snowboarder, had been in such pain from arthritis that he could not stand long enough to make coffee, let alone work. He had health insurance, but it would not cover a joint replacement because his degenerative disease was related to an old sports injury, thus considered a pre-existing condition. Desperate to find an affordable solution, he reached out to a sailing...

As health care costs in the United States rise, an increasing number of Americans are going overseas for elective procedures, or are at least considering that possibility. In response to an article in The New York Times on Sunday about an American who went to Belgium to have his hip replaced because his insurer in the United States would not cover the procedure, hundreds of readers said they would be willing to follow that path. Michael Shopenn’s surgery in 2007 would have cost close to $100,000 in the United States. But it cost just $13,660 — including all medicine, doctors’...

Jon Weiner's hospitals are a far cry from what you might be used to. There are no lengthy admissions forms to fill in. And the service you get might remind you of a five-star hotel. The cost? No more than any other hospital. The catch? They are all overseas. Weiner co-founded the New York-based startup OR International LLC (www.orintl.com) with the goal of exporting a higher-quality American brand of healthcare throughout the world, with a primary focus on improving patient treatment.

Changes to the U.S. health care system under President Obama’s new law may have the unintended consequence of increasing Americans’ demand for medical tourism. Providers Fleeing Medicare David Boucher, president of Companion Global Health Care, says demand will in part originate from Medicare recipients. “Now that the health care reform bill has passed, we expect more employers to seriously consider medical tourism, for several reasons,” said Boucher. “One impact of the national reform law is that more doctors are going to be giving up their private practices. “In 2008, 28 percent of Medicare beneficiaries looking for a primary care doctor...

The despair in the field of medicine over Obama's government takeover of America's once vibrant healthcare system can be overwhelming for America's doctors. Many have said that if Obamacare is implemented, they'll hang up their stethoscope and retire. The gloom is overpowering. But WAIT! Help is on the way. A new effort is underway to help these poor doctors get themselves out from under the U.S. Government's thumb, a new website has been started to keep Obama's socialist overreach at bay. If you are an American doctor, help has arrived to help you uphold your hippocratic oath and still...

So you're not thrilled with the new healthcare reform package signed into law today by President Barack Obama. What can you do? Well, you can be like talk radio host Rush Limbaugh and move to Costa Rica as a way of protesting the new law. Better yet, you can combine your love of travel with your need for medical care by experiencing medical tourism. Essentially, medical tourism is the practice of traveling beyond your home country's borders to seek medical care in another nation -- usually at a much lower cost. This is especially true for surgeries not typically covered...

One of the fastest growing businesses in India is medical tourism. It's exactly what it sounds like: Patients who are unable to get medical care travel to India, at their own expense, to buy what they're denied in their home countries. "Medical" tourism in India has been in existence for more than two centuries, with people from all over the world going to India seeking mystical oriental healing. But the new trend of medical tourism is something entirely different. The patients are not looking for Oriental mysticism or magic; they seek ordinary, reliable, modern Western medicine -- which is increasingly...

Healthcare reform will probably pass this afternoon. Those of us that oppose this legislation have an obligation to step back and consider where we stand on the issue from here. Do we continue to fight this and the various fixes and next steps that will come shortly, or do we support this legislation? If you think the answer is easy I urge you to reconsider. If we help make bad legislation worse we are contributing to the damage of our healthcare system but if we don’t fight this thing now we may be allowing the change of our national character...

THE Philippines should maximize its potential as a medical tourism, wellness and retirement hub in Asia, experts said. Medical tourism alone is projected to be a $188-billion industry by 2013, as more and more people seek quality health care overseas. Medical tourism in the Philippines is quietly but surely bringing benefits into the country. More than revenue, the benefits of medical tourism, wellness and retirement combined are larger, more substantial and more long-term than what can be quantified simply in financial terms, Sanjiv Malik, a renowned guru in medical tourism in India, told reporters during a press conference at the...

WASHINGTON — Critics of health care reform often point to desperate Canadians who head south for surgery to escape waiting lists. But a trend closer to home points the opposite direction: Americans heading overseas to escape the high cost of U.S. care. < snip > Once a cottage industry, medical tourism may be on the cusp of major expansion as governments from India to Singapore invest in state-of-the-art hospitals, vying for a global market. Uninsured patients currently make up the bulk of Americans venturing abroad. But Vequist's group has studied at least 50 companies that say they are open to...

More than a year ago, the Hannaford Brothers grocery chain became one of the first employers in the country to encourage workers to go abroad for medical care. In the time since, the company has redefined the concept "medical tourism." "I think at that time it was probably on the outer edges of innovation to even offer it," says Hannaford spokesman Mike Norton. Norton says it was more cost-efficient for the company to send people to the Singapore hospital because it charged less than U.S. hospitals and had demonstrated strong patient outcomes. "In their region of the world, they have...

Recently, a friend shared a prediction that prompted me to wonder whether or not the medical tourism industry will experience a boom if government-run health care becomes a reality in the United States.

The Other Public Option: In Search of Better Health Care Abroad Buzz up! Lessons from medical tourism provide a wake-up call in the aftermath of "You lie!": We're worried about offering insurance to Mexicans, but it's Mexico that wants to give us its best medical care. It's not just Joe Wilson who thinks illegal aliens might get health insurance if we — God forbid! — extend health insurance to all Americans. A lot of people do, apparently. So as Max Baucus and Co. begin work today to find more ways to kill the public option ("Who's really supporting it, other...

Some clinics are taking advantage of desperate patients, says an international group of stem cell scientists.Growing numbers of clinics abroad are marketing unproven, costly stem cell therapies to medical tourists and "exploiting patients' hopes," according to a report from the International Society for Stem Cell Research.The Deerfield, Ill.-based group convened a task force of researchers, ethicists, doctors and regulatory officials from 13 countries to devise guidelines that target clinics offering experimental therapy to patients without appropriate transparency, oversight or patient protections. Discuss on SermoStem cell boundariesLinksSee related contentE-mail - - Write a letter "There is this tension between the slow...

In India the LAP-BAND System has been proven the safest, simplest and effective way to treat severe obesity. If you are seriously overweight, the LAP-BAND System can help you achieve a happier, healthier life! In India the Lap-Band system is the least invasive of all weight loss surgeries. The system includes an adjustable silicon elastic band that is surgically placed around the stomach. The band induces weight loss by restricting food intake; when eating less, your body draws from its own fat to get the energy it needs. The Lap-Band is the only adjustable weight loss surgery; in fact, band...

World's first awake bypass surgery with valve replacement performed at Wockhardt Hospitals, Bangalore. Another chapter in the history of heart surgery across the world was written in India by the Bangalore-based Wockhardt Hospital & Heart Institute, recently. Dr Vivek Jawali, chief cardiovascular surgeon along with his team at Wockhardt Heart Institute have set a global benchmark by performing the first coronary bypass surgery along with an aortic valve replacement without using general anaesthesia or ventilator support while the patient was on a heart lung machine. This is the first such reported case in the world of a twin heart...